Vice President Mike Pence will be at the Johnson Space Center in Houston today to inaugurate the newest class of NASA astronauts. There was a record number of applicants this time around — more than 18,000 people applied to the space program. That’s triple the number of the last class in 2012. But the heightened job interest comes amidst proposed White House budget cuts of 3 percent for NASA. What do those cuts say about the space program’s future?

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